


Mrs. Pollifax and the Irish Expatriate

by Gray Cardinal (Gray_Cardinal)



Category: Mrs. Pollifax - Dorothy Gilman
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-18
Updated: 2018-12-18
Packaged: 2019-09-22 02:07:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17051039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gray_Cardinal/pseuds/Gray%20Cardinal
Summary: On a rare trip not involving an assignment from Carstairs, Emily Pollifax encounters the single person she least expected to meet outside of Brunswick, New Jersey.





	Mrs. Pollifax and the Irish Expatriate

**Author's Note:**

  * For [genarti](https://archiveofourown.org/users/genarti/gifts).



> **Notes:** _Mrs. Emily Pollifax and her entourage were created by Dorothy Gilman. This episode takes place some time between the events of_ A Palm for Mrs. Pollifax _and_ Mrs. Pollifax on Safari.

**Langley, Virginia**

“Mrs. Pollifax is going _where_?”

“Ireland,” said Bishop.  “Evidently a cousin of hers has passed on and there are some family matters to be sorted out – not so much inheritances, by the sound of it, as favorite books and mementos to be divided among the younger generations.”

Carstairs’ eyebrow rose.  “In what context,” he inquired mildly, “are we to expected to count Emily Pollifax as ‘younger’?”

“That would be Emily Margaret _Cavanaugh_ Pollifax, if you please,” Bishop said, “as she reminded me when she called earlier – although the grandmother of hers who first came over to America was evidently a McNair.  She gave me a reasonably full genealogy,” he explained, “in the course of asking if there were any errands she might run for us while she was there.”

A short bark of laughter escaped Carstairs’ lips.  “Of course she did.  But still, ‘younger’ generation?”

“Of those who’ve kept up with their relations in the auld country,” Bishop replied.  “Marriage aside, the families over there still count their Cousin Emily as a Cavanaugh _and_ a McNair, because of the cards and letters they send back and forth.  The son and daughter, not so much – they’ve not inherited the turn of mind to be properly Irish, is the way Mrs. Pollifax put it, although she has hopes for one or two of her grandchildren.”

“Properly Irish,” repeated Carstairs, amused.  “Next you’ll be telling me she has leprechauns in her family tree, thereby explaining how she keeps handing us four-leaf clovers from wherever we’re desperate enough to send her.”

Bishop gave him a long-suffering look.  “I did ask, and she said not.  Though it certainly would explain her string of successes.”

Carstairs shrugged.  “I presume,” he said, “that you assured her we had no ‘errands’ outstanding anywhere in the British Isles?”

“I did.  I told her to enjoy herself – as quietly as possible, just in case something should come up somewhere down the line.”

“Very good,” said Carstairs, turning to go into the inner office.  Abruptly, he swung back toward Bishop. “And did you also tell her that she is not, repeat not, to send the department so much as a drop of Irish whiskey or Guinness should she happen to run across a supply while she’s over there?”

Bishop did his best to look chagrined.  “I may,” he replied, “have neglected to mention that particular issue.”

Carstairs sighed, shook his head, and retreated. “At least in Ireland she’s not likely to get in any sort of serious difficulty.”

Only once his superior had shut the door to the inner office did Bishop dare to murmur, “I really wish you hadn’t said that.”

#

**Dublin, Ireland**

The two of them sat in the pub nursing tall mugs of golden liquid and making gradual inroads on a heap of buttery fresh-baked soft pretzels.  Grace Hartshorne’s cider was the non-alcoholic sort, but Mrs. Pollifax had chosen a pear cider brewed on the premises, and was carefully rationing her sips to hold its effects to a minimum.

“It’s the oddest thing,” said Grace, “but it’s as if I’ve been here before.”

“Here, specifically?” Mrs. Pollifax asked.  “In this pub?”

Grace shook her head.  “Oh, no, not like that.  But _here_ as in Ireland, oh my yes – and all over.  Here and there in Dublin, down at – I think – Wicklow or thereabouts, and…I’m not sure exactly, but somewhere underground.  Some I saw last summer, but others the group never went near.”

Mrs. Pollifax looked thoughtful.  “Yet you don’t remember it in the least – not consciously, at any rate.  And as far as anyone’s paperwork goes, you’d never been to Ireland at all till last August.”

“Exactly.  But then again,” the younger woman said, “a lack of paperwork is what got me here in the first place.”

“True,” said Mrs. Pollifax.  “Although there are sometimes reasons for that sort of thing.  Other than pure accident, I mean.”  _Espionage, for instance_.  _Or witness protection_.  The former, she thought, was highly unlikely; infants or toddlers and the sorts of adventures Carstairs and his colleagues supervised struck her as wildly incompatible.  The latter, on the other hand….   

“Emily?”  Grace’s voice interrupted her train of thought.

Mrs. Pollifax shook her head a little, to clear it.  “I’m sorry, I was wool-gathering.”

“No more than I was, I’m sure,” said Grace.  “It’s just – these are so much more than plain dreams, somehow.  I mean, I’ve _had_ the usual sort – riding trains or buses to nowhere in particular, hurrying along hallways and staircases that circle back on themselves, turning up in school or church in just your unmentionables.  Those start vivid and then go fuzzy as you start to wake up.  This new sort: they’re more like bits of a film, shorter and crisper, they stay that way right through – and there are things I _recognize_ in some of them, only they’re things I swear I’ve never seen before.”

Mrs. Pollifax tore part of a pretzel off, bit into it, and chewed thoughtfully.  After swallowing, she took a breath, considering her words carefully.  “Back home,” she said, “the accepted thing to do would be to send you to a psychiatrist.”

Grace laughed ruefully.  “Oh, I’ve been, several times over.  Sometimes, something helps a little – there was a Dr. McGuire years ago who showed me maze meditation, and a Dr. Khalil who wanted to try hypnosis; he got recruited by NASA to work with astronauts, and we lost touch.  There were a few snake-oil sellers, one or two out-and-out quacks, and entirely too many doctors who thought I needed someone to take care of me – preferably a husband with deep pockets.”

“Then it’s as well,” said Mrs. Pollifax equably, “that we’re not in America. Though I must say I’d be tempted by hypnosis myself in your circumstances.  And,” she added, “I might just know someone who could locate your Dr. Khalil.  But that doesn’t address the immediate situation.”

“True,” replied Grace.  “Do I take it you have an idea or two about that?”

 Mrs. Pollifax leaned back in her chair.  “I do,” she said, “but I warn you it’s – eccentric.”

Grace laughed again.  “At this point, I’ll take eccentric if it leads somewhere that helps.”

“Well, then,” said Mrs. Pollifax,, taking a breath, “here it is.  This is my first visit to Ireland, but my maternal grandmother emigrated from here to America back in the day.  She was a great storyteller, and so I had all the old Irish myths from her and from Mother.  I’m not the talespinner Gran was, but I did my best to pass the stories on to Roger and Jane when they were small.  And I read more than a bit about Irish folklore on my own.”

“Of course you did,” said Grace, with an expression that was half frown, half curiosity, and half deeply skeptical.  “And so you think…”

“It’s a guess.  And a very wild guess at that,” Mrs. Pollifax said quickly.  “But one thing the Fair Folk were sometimes said to do was to exchange a human child for one of their own.  I’ve never quite seen _why_ it was done, but if one grants that the Fair Folk exist – and my Gran swore up and down that they did – one can assume they might well still leave the odd change-child about.”

Grace had gone very still.  “And you think _I_ might be a change-child.”

Mrs. Pollifax returned her gaze steadily.  “I don’t think,” she said, “that I could even begin to make that suggestion if we were sitting at home in New Jersey.  But here?  Even with electric light and automobiles in the streets, the ground feels _old_ under my feet.  I can’t say for certain, but look at the facts.  Going by what you’ve told me in the last two days, you’ve spent more than thirty-five years keeping other people at a distance.  Even allowing for losing your parents so early, there has to be a reason for that.  At the same time, here you are in Ireland twice within a year – the first time you’ve ever gone somewhere more than once, and the first traveling entirely on your own.  There’s a reason for that, too – based on those dreams of yours, you’ve a deep, almost physical connection with the land here.”

“Not almost,” Grace said, slowly.  “You’re right about that, at least – in a physical sense, I think my body is telling me it’s come home.  But my mind doesn’t seem to have caught up with it, at least not yet.”

#

**a road in County Wicklow, two days later**

The two women extracted themselves from their compact rental car – Mrs. Pollifax having done the driving – and stood for several moments studying the narrow stone bridge some hundred feet farther along the side road.  It was clearly not, Mrs. Pollifax reflected, genuinely ancient, but neither was it precisely a piece of modern highway construction.  The rail-stones were clearly hand-hewn rather than cut by machine, and there was no poured cement or concrete anywhere in the makings.

“This one is right,” said Grace softly, her eyes flaring wide and bright.  “There’s a _shimmer_ just half across, that I can’t see through at all.  Like a curtain, the full width of the road.”

Mrs. Pollifax nodded.  “That will be a gateway, then – a door into Faerie, if you will.  And if you’ve the eyes to see it, it follows you’ve the right to pass through.”

“You _don’t_ see it?” Grace asked sharply.  “But your Irish blood, from your grandmother—”

“Not a glimmer.  Evidently Gran’s family wasn’t on…intimate terms with the Fair Folk.  Very few mortals would have been, I should think.”

Grace didn’t reply at once, her gaze half intent on the bridge and half…elsewhere.  At last, she said, “I just don’t know if I’m ready.”

Mrs. Pollifax took a long, none-too-steady breath.  “If I were to come with you…”

The noise from Grace’s lips approached a gasp.  “You – you would?  But can you?  And could you get back again?”

“You might be surprised,” said Mrs. Pollifax, unable to resist a chuckle.  “I’ll make you a bargain.  If you and I _don’t_ return here, I’ll have stories to tell you that I’ve not shared with my grandchildren.”  Carstairs, she told herself, would hardly be in a position to object to such a promise should she find herself permanently stranded in Tír na nÓg.

“And if – when we do come back?”

Mrs.  Pollifax chuckled again.  “In that case, I’ve a man you should meet first.”  Such a meeting, she reflected, might well open an extraordinarily complicated can of worms.  But if the circumstances arose, she could not imagine attempting to keep the adventure a secret from Carstairs and Bishop.  Moreover, she could not imagine anyone else in any sort of legal authority she would be more inclined to trust with Grace’s particular secrets.

“You’re quite sure you want to do this?”  Grace’s tone was still uncertain.

“I think _you_ need to,” Mrs. Pollifax replied.  “And given that, I assuredly can’t stand by and let you go through alone.”

“Well, then,” said Grace, “what are we waiting for?”  She took a quick step forward, but Mrs. Pollifax reached out just as quickly and caught her elbow.

“Together,” she said.  “From the stories, if I’m to come along, we need to be in physical contact as we pass through the curtain – hand in hand, I should think.”

Grace laughed nervously.  “Hand in hand it is, then.”  She took Mrs. Pollifax’s left hand in her right, and the two strode together onto the bridge, one tall slender figure and one a good head shorter and rather sturdier of build.  Side by side they walked, the leather soles of Grace’s pumps tapping softly against the stone while Mrs. Pollifax’s rubber-soled walking shoes made almost no noise at all.

Even with her hand firmly in the other woman’s grip, Mrs. Pollifax could not see the silvery shimmer Grace described.  But as they reached the middle of the bridge, she felt a sudden sharp chill and a peculiar twisting sensation, as if she was being pulled three different sorts of sideways at once.  For an eternal-seeming instant, she was enveloped in darkness…

…and then she wasn’t.

**the same road, elsewhere**

“Well,” said Grace, “that’s one question answered.”

Mrs. Pollifax gave their surroundings a thorough glance.  “Possibly two,” she replied.  The physical landscape in which they’d arrived was essentially similar to the one they’d left – though the road wherever _here_ might be was of satin-smooth cobblestone rather than blacktop, and the character of the landscape ran a bit more toward _meadow_ and less toward _farm_.  “We may still be in the middle of the countryside, but we’ve been noticed.”  She gestured at a pair of ravens perched calmly atop a low stone wall running along one side of the road.  At the motion, one of the two cocked its head at the women and uttered a lively _KAA-KAAWWWW_!  The other nodded at its companion, spread its wings, and arrowed rapidly upward and eastward.

“Ravens?” Grace’s tone was puzzled.  “I remember ravens in Norse legend.  I hope we didn’t land in the wrong otherworld.”

“I wouldn’t worry,” Mrs. Pollifax replied.  “Ravens turn up in all manner of folklore, and they’re very bright even in our own world.  The guards at the Tower of London keep several as watchers, and on the northwest coast of America, Raven is the same sort of trickster figure and guiding spirit that Coyote is to many of the native cultures elsewhere on the continent.”  She did not mention aloud that in Celtic tradition, ravens were often associated with the Morrigan, mistress of war, death, and fate. 

Grace eyed the remaining raven skeptically.  “So we wait?”

“I should think so,” said Mrs. Pollifax.  “I don’t imagine they get many visitors, and even if there were road signs to hand, we’d likely not be able to read them or know which destination to pick.”

They did not wait long – though just how long was unclear, as both Grace’s and Mrs. Pollifax’s watches proved entirely unreliable at keeping time.  Within something like an hour, a gleaming horse-drawn coach came briskly up the road from the south, drawing to a stop a few yards from the bridge.  From the coach a tall figure emerged, clothed in a knee-length emerald-green tunic belted with a bright golden chain. 

“Greetings, O visitors!  I am called Nuada – no, not that one,” he said easily, instantly noting Mrs. Pollifax’s startled expression and her glance at his hands.  “I am sent to bring you to the court of my lady Rhiannon, mistress of these lands hereabouts.  You will be honored guests, I assure you – truth be told, you have been expected.”

**a castle in Tír na nÓg**

“Be welcome in my court, both of you.  I am Rhiannon, Lady of Kilkyrie.”

From what Nuada had told Grace and Mrs. Pollifax as they rode, their hostess was less than a queen but rather more than a duchess – and at the same time, as much farmer and country lass as ranking royalty.  Evidently, Kilkyrie was more or less the breadbasket for this region of Tir na nOg, but was also the site of several very old and important magical structures and sites, not least the gate through which the two women had come.

Accordingly, the castle of Kilkyrie blended the qualities of farmhouse, fortress, and museum.  At present, there were six people gathered in a sitting room which was clearly modest by its residents’ standards but luxurious by Mrs. Pollifax’s.  Besides Rhiannon, Nuada, and Grace, there were an aged silver-haired man introduced as Mercia, a healer by vocation, and a slim, heavily shrouded figure who had not yet been introduced.

“Indeed,” Nuada put in.  “Ladies and guests, may we have the honor of your names?”

Mrs. Pollifax spoke first.  “You may indeed.  I am Emily Pollifax, born Emily Margaret Cavanaugh, of New Jersey in North America.  My grandmother was born Caroline Elspeth McNair of Bray, and I learned much of what I know of your folk from the stories she told when I was a child.”

It was Mercia who nodded.  “Jonathan Cavanaugh’s bride, she was, and wiser than most in our ways.  Welcome, indeed.”

“And I,” said Grace, “have been called Grace Christianna Hartshorne since I was old enough to speak – but I suspect now that that name properly belongs – or belonged, at least – to another.”

Now Rhiannon inclined her head.  “And so it does.”  She gestured at the hooded figure, who rose and somewhat awkwardly extracted itself from the voluminous cloak – to reveal a woman who was very nearly Grace’s twin, lacking only an inch in height and a certain sharpness of facial features to make the resemblance complete.

Mercia took up the narrative.  “This is the original Grace Hartshorne, born three weeks early in the village of Kilquade, while her parents were visiting from America.   Her mother was not expecting to give birth so soon, Grace was at some risk of surviving – and by great fortune, one of our own household had also just borne a daughter.  By setting the change-bond, we thought to save the mortal babe’s life – and as well, to see through our own eyes a glimpse of the human world, a practice we had let lapse as your technology advanced.”

Emily sucked in a sharp breath.  “So the bond works in both directions?”

“Say rather that it _can_ ,” Rhiannon answered.  “As a rule, the Sidhe who crosses imprints strongly enough on their human family that they permanently lose conscious memory of their origins.  But that occurs because your emotions are far more intense than ours.  We did not realize, until your arrival in Ireland, that this had not happened in the present case.”

Grace – the one that had come with Mrs. Pollifax – was nodding now.  “She must have begun seeing my childhood, just as I began seeing hers.  And because I was orphaned so very young, I never imprinted emotionally on anyone.”

“Exactly,” Mercia said.  “And what would have been normal enough here, among us, began to be painful for you, alone in a sea of mortals.”

“What about you?” Mrs. Pollifax asked the newly revealed human Grace.  “And what should we call you?”

“I’ve been Anna, for the most part,” came the reply.  “And don’t misunderstand.  I’ve been happy enough here; after all, it’s the world I grew up in.  I can even manage a bit of ‘magic’ – there are things you don’t need to be Sidhe by birth to do.  But now…”

“—it’s time to set things right,” said both Graces at once.  “Or, well, not so much _right_ as ‘where they need to be’,” Anna went on.  “I think it’s time I did some traveling of my own.”

Her opposite number nodded slowly.  “And I rather think,” she said, “that I need to come home, to learn who I am all over again.”

Mrs. Pollifax’s mind was whirling.  “But is it really that simple?”

 “Yes and no,” Mercia said.  “The bond between the worlds is uneven.  We cannot simply send Anna home with you – the time imbalance would be fatal, perhaps to both women.  What we can do is to recast the change-bond in reverse – essentially, to transpose their spirits into each other’s bodies.  Each will retain their own memories and knowledge, and each will also remain connected, subconsciously, to the other.”

Rhiannon looked soberly from ‘Anna’ to ‘Grace’ and back again.  “Is this what you both desire?”

The bonded pair gazed deeply into one another’s eyes.  “It is,” they said together.

“Then let it be done.”

**Langley, Virginia, a week later  
**

“So,” asked Carstairs, “how was Mrs. Pollifax’s trip to Ireland?”

Bishop grinned at him.  “Very peaceful, she says, with only one surprise.  She ran into one of her neighbors in Dublin – the Hartshorne woman, you’ll have the file we ran up when we first vetted Emily.  And she thinks we ought to recruit her.”

Carstairs stared at his assistant.  “Recruit her?”

“Emily says she’s more gifted than she’d realized before.  Almost magical, she said.”

Carstairs blinked, considered, and sighed deeply.

“I just know I’m going to regret this,” he said.  “But do another background check, and if she passes?  Tell Mrs. Pollifax to bring her in for an interview.  Then we’ll see.”

# # #


End file.
